Nia Vardalos Quotes

Girls shouldn't throw away their lives. They have the opportunity to not have 25 children - to make something of themselves, and use their brains and creativity. I'm just thrilled about that.

For my brothers it was easy to think about the future. They can be anything they want. But for me it was hard and for that reason I wanted to become educated and empower myself with knowledge.

I'm very supportive of women getting to a place in life when it's right for them to start a family. It's important for women to take their time to come into their own. I only want to say we might not have as much time as we think we have.

You can do what you want to do. You can be what you want to be.

From 1970 onwards, our culture told both sexes that individual expression was paramount. And for women, that was defined as the right to choose an interesting a career, a high-status mate, the desirable handbag or vacation, the perfect family size, and a definitionally fruitless quest for 'perfection.'

I think it's really interesting to play a woman who can articulate that she isn't ready to have a family and isn't even sure if she wants a family. I have a lot of friends like that. But obviously, that's not me.

We are equal in war but not in peace.

We need to respect choices that women make.

I believe in living life the way that you want to live it every day, and if you do that, you don't really need to have New Year's resolutions.

It's your life, live it your way.

La Mancha is a very macho, chauvinistic society. I saw very clearly that my life had to be in Madrid, and I liberated myself from my mum and dad after high school.

The idea of not being able to control my own fertility genuinely terrifies me. That one mistake might change your life. That everything I am, and do, could be ended by the repeal of laws our mothers fought so hard for, that women had waited for the entire span of humanity to come about.

I spent a lot of time doing things other people wanted me to do, so I'm doing what I want to do now.

It had never crossed my mind that a man could think he had the right to stop me from being who I was.

I have lectured at the U.N. and travelled widely, giving lectures on human rights and gender inequalities in universities. But this is a life I do not wish to live. I don't want to be a showcase, I want to be in a battlefield where I can stand beside the oppressed and the poor.

I'm in a position that allows me to do what I want to do, and I do it.

Education liberates a woman.

Every woman who chooses - joyfully, thoughtfully, calmly, of their own free will and desire - not to have a child does womankind a massive favour in the long term.

To put it mildly, I'm not crazy about the implication that pregnant women are incapable of deciding for themselves.

One of the things that always comes up in my writing is the search for freedom, especially in women. I always write about women who are marginalized, who have no means or resources and somehow manage to get out of those situations with incredible strength - and that is more important than anything.

And also I didn't want my future to be just sitting in a room and be imprisoned in my four walls and just cooking and giving birth to children. I didn't want to see my life in that way.

It doesn't have to be a mountain you have to be climbing. I hope to change people's opinion about Saudi in general and Saudi women and Saudi women's opinion about themselves. I really hope they can step out of their comfort zone and just dream: try to push your limits.

A quality education grants us the ability to fight the war on ignorance and poverty.

Until women learn to want economic independence, and until they work out a way to get this independence without denying themselves the joys of love and motherhood, it seems to me feminism has no roots.

When the poor know that their children will survive, when they educate their daughters, when they access family planning, they have fewer children.